


Two for the Price of One

by fouryearslater (CheshireCatLife)



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Attempt at Humor, BUT TWO!, English, Loneliness, Meet-Cute, Multi, a lot of it, and then the chaos ensues, attention seeking, but in a fun way, ciri is geralt's biological daughter, confusions about sexuality, is that bad?, maybe some book characters and references but I haven't read them in a few years so who knows, music magicians and a dude who just doesn't know how to deal with that, probably, references to the games, skirting around depression, this is just so english, triss and yennefer friendship!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22337059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheshireCatLife/pseuds/fouryearslater
Summary: Concerts are magical events: pounding music, breathtaking vocals and sometimes, even a little bit of witchcraft.So when Geralt turns up to a concert only to meet a charismatic musician and a mysterious mage, he can't say he's surprised. But when both of them ask him on a date...Well, fuck.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	1. I've Got 99 Problems, But-

**Author's Note:**

> This idea just came upon me and I just know I'm going to regret it because it feels like the most stupid idea in history because it's just far too crack-ish but I love it and I'm going with it. I wrote 5000 words of morbid witcher stuff, now is time for some lighthearted (though at times, maybe not) stupidity.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! So I really should stop posing WIPs instead of fully-fledged fics but this idea hit me and I just had to write it so here you go! Have some cheesy Witcher content :)
> 
> Also, note: I involved Priscilla from the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (she might have been in the books, but I don't remember her being so, well...) but not as a love interest for Jaskier. They're friends. And, also, I don't know her personality at all because I didn't explore that much when I played the game so she's basically on OC with the same face, just so you know. If anyone has any ideas about her personality that are vital, feel free to tell me and I'll try to involve them!
> 
> -fouryearslater

“And so I was talking to my friend, Jenny. You know, the blonde annoying one?” _Just like you_ , Geralt thought. Instead, he grunted and motioned to the machine where his client had been sitting uselessly for the last ten minutes. They barely had a few minutes left of their session but it was clear this woman was trying to wile it away with anything that didn’t involve the exercise he’d put in her fucking schedule. Geralt wouldn’t have minded if not for the fact that she’d complained about her lack of progress last month and had the gall to blame him for it, rather remorselessly at that. Frankly, it was a miracle she hadn’t just switched trainers.

“Well, she-”

“10 more reps,” he cut her off with, ignoring the look of veiled hurt on her face. Not that it mattered once her eyes caught his chest again: ah, well, maybe there was one reason she still stuck around.

He sighed. This day was bordering on unbearable. He’d only had three clients but between the inane chatter of the first and last, he’d just about filled the quota on his socialisation metre. But the weight of stress on his shoulders wore heavier than any of that as he remembered the vicious complaints of his second client.

They were making a Snapchat documentary which, frankly, Geralt couldn’t care less about and they weren’t going quick enough to finish filming in time for their ‘great reveal’. His current client’s complaints last month were nothing compared to the unbridled screaming of this man as he realised that Geralt’s schedule didn’t even begin to match to his. If only, Geralt thought, the man had bothered to _look_ at his schedule to begin with.

The man had ‘trusted him’ apparently. What with? He wasn’t sure. He’d never actually told Geralt about any of his goals, especially not ones that were to be completed in such a small timeframe.

Of course, that would never make it into the documentary. No, they’d get the one clip of Geralt saying the guy was alright and say that was that.

God, Geralt hated people.

He finished up with his current client, ignoring her usual complaints about the ‘gym smell’ and headed towards the locker area, where he grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder, determined to shower at home. Frankly, one more moment in this hellhole and he was going to snap.

The walk home refreshed his mind, the wheezing wind drying some of the sweat on his skin. It was a feeling he’d long become accustomed to but it was still refreshing to feel himself cool down after eight hours stuck in a beating hot room with only immeasurably irritating people to pass the time.

Geralt liked his job, he really did. It was people he didn’t like. Which, yes, they kind of came with the job but he liked the calm repetitiveness of showing them how to do reps he’d done a thousand times before and then checking them as they did it themselves, pointing out minor flaws with a sight he’d trained over years.

He probably wasn’t the most inspirational of personal trainers but he did his job and he did it well. He made their schedules, made them follow it and even did diet plans for those who paid a bit extra. And, at the end of the day, it paid his bills.

Or, it had. It was. Just…maybe…no, it didn’t matter.

Geralt didn’t announce himself when he returned home, but the slamming of the door was enough. “Hey!” Ciri shouted from the kitchen, leaning back on her chair to see her father through the archway. Their house was simply designed and small, which suited Geralt perfectly well and always had. The plain grey walls were broken up by some of Ciri’s artwork (though most of them were from her childhood) and a few pieces bought for them, giving some personality to the otherwise shell of a house it had been before Ciri had been born. Geralt had lived here for twenty years: far too long, really. He didn’t even know how it happened. Or why. He hadn’t been born in Croydon, nor did he like the location of it. But the place had been cheap at the time and he’d needed a place to call his own so, well, here he was.

Geralt stood at the bottom of the staircase, sitting on the bottom step that faced the door as he unlaced his trainers. On his right was the narrow archway that led into their small living room and behind him, the kitchen-diner. Just in front of him was an old wooden door that led to a dismal toilet that neither him nor Ciri dared use (the brown definitely didn’t look like a _choice_ ) with a full-length, unadorned mirror hanging on it, giving him a perfect view of Ciri almost sending herself flying as her chair slipped, catching herself quickly on the kitchen counter. He laughed to himself but didn’t speak up; he’d long since learnt that laughing at a 13-year-old ended in disaster.

Once the clattering quieted down, Geralt finally stood up and made his way into the kitchen, looking surprised at the scattered paper on the table. “What’s this?”

“Homework.” He didn’t want to question it but somehow, he doubted that the endless pieces of paper were homework. The girl was 13, for fuck’s sake, she certainly hadn’t reached an age where she was drowning in school work.

Ignoring her protests, he snatched a piece of paper off the desk, reading it through squinted eyes. “Concert ticket to see…Dandelion? What kind of fucking name is Dandelion?”

Ciri snatched the paper out of his hand and scowled. “ _Dandelion_ is a _singer_ and I’ve been sorting out going to a concert with my friends.”

“With what money?”

“I’ve been saving up.”

“Who are you going with?” Geralt grilled. And _yes_ , he was unashamedly _that dad_.

“Dara.”

“And?”

“Just some people from school. You wouldn’t know them.”

“What’s the paper for?”

“Printing tickets.”

“30 of them?”

“I _may_ have printed them a few too many times.” Geralt scowled. Ink was fucking expensive. He’d rather it wasn’t being wasted on concert tickets to some shitty local act.

“Hmm,” Geralt sighed. “I’m gonna go have a shower. I’ll cook in an hour.” Or what he constituted as cooking. Their meals were fairly dismal, and he wasn’t exactly afraid to admit it, but he wasn’t letting a 13-year-old cook for him because he was incompetent.

“Wait!” Ciri called as he headed back into the hallway, grimacing at the dirt ingrained in the dark beige carpet. He really didn’t want to clean. “I was…I was going to ask you something.”

“Yes?” Why couldn’t teenagers ever _get to the point_?

“Um…well…we were going to go with one of my friends’ mum because if you’re under 16, you have to be accompanied by an adult but then they couldn’t make it anymore and everyone else’s parents are too busy and, well, I was wondering if, maybe, you could bring us?”

Oh joy, bringing a bunch of pre-pubescent teenagers to a concert, his favourite activity.

But he never could say no to Ciri. It was a fault she’d exploited over the years and one he’d never learnt to resist. So, with a heavy heart and an impending sense of doom, he nodded. “Fine.”

“Yes!” She cheered. “Thanks, Geralt!” She never called him dad and he didn’t want her to. Their relationship was just…like that. The thought of her calling him dad just felt off now, like it was too late.

He didn’t answer her, deeming his privacy more important than mindless platitudes (which Ciri was more than used to by now), and headed upstairs.

The second floor was even smaller than the first with a bathroom immediately on the left, which only just about held the bath-shower combo he’d installed a few years back, followed by his own room, with Ciri taking the larger room on the right. The small corridor in between led to a small bay window which overlooked their untidy, and impossibly small, garden. Geralt had tried to cut it back a few years ago but the weeds had already grown through and by the now the stone slabs were nothing more than green cesspits. Not that Geralt particularly minded; the high fences between them and the neighbours meant it barely got the sun anyway. And in England, if you didn’t have the sun, there was no use in going outside at all.

Well, Geralt had once used it smoke. But, like the rest of life, he’d become bored with that.

Treading past more dreary grey walls, he pushed his door open and was startled by a cat pouncing at his ankles. “Roach, no,” he ordered, picking the cat up and resting him on his shoulder. “Not after the shit I’ve gone through today,” he muttered, mindlessly running a hand through his cat’s brown fur. Roach, who he’d had since Ciri was nine years old, was a grumpy cat with a light brown coat with splotches of white intermittently breaking the pattern. A mutt through and through, she was probably Geralt’s best friend. Animals, he’d always thought, were much better company than humans.

They’d long since learnt their way around each other. Roach would either warily watch from his position on Geralt’s bed as Geralt went through the motions of getting out of his work headspace or attack him mercilessly until Geralt held him on his shoulder, where he’d curl up around his neck for warmth. It was usually the latter. And, although Geralt would never admit it, he preferred it that way.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Geralt began because yes, he was the kind of man that shamelessly talked to his cat, even if it meant merciless teasing from his teenage daughter. “My clients are fucking awful.” Sighing, he grabbed some lounge clothes and made his way to the bathroom, ignoring Roach’s hiss as he put her on the carpet outside. “Sorry,” he apologised sincerely, “but I’m not going to trap you in there.” He’d tried it once and inevitably, Roach had started scratching at the door within five minutes, bored and antsy. It didn’t seem to stop the glare Roach gave him but the hissing did stop as his hand comfortingly ran through her fur, bristles soft against his calloused hands.

He was quick to enter the bathroom and close the door behind him, trying to overcome the pang in his heart at the pitiful whine he heard outside the door. The urge to let her in almost took hold but routine won out and instead he took an impossibly quick shower and returned to his feline friend in a pair of sweatpants and his white hair tied back in a low bun. Wet, it was an almost dark grey, showing the dissimilarity to Ciri’s own hair, which she’d taken from her mother, which often turned a straw-like yellow when washed.

Together, they were white, blonde and brown; teenager, mutant and cat. A comically disparate trio who forged their own path through life without shame. White, blonde and brown was a good band name, he thought suddenly. Better than fucking _Dandelion_.

That reminded him. “Ciri!” He bellowed down the stairs, clinging to the bannister as he leaned over the edge and watched Ciri come out of the kitchen and crane her neck to look up at him. “What?”

“When’s the concert?”

“Oh! Um…this Saturday?” She knew as clear as day that he was going to be mad at the short notice but frankly, he didn’t have the energy today to act like it. Instead, he just rolled his eyes and let her worry alone in the kitchen (which, with how much he’d found out teenage girls overthought things, was punishment enough) as he made his way downstairs and into the living room, falling down onto the leather sofa that didn’t suit the room at all but was comfortable enough to never complain about it, and turn on the TV. The open archway between the living room and kitchen only showed the utility section, where week-old laundry was waiting to be washed, hiding Ciri and her chaotic mess away. It allowed Geralt to pretend he had a semblance of privacy.

He leant back and sighed, flipping onto a self-indulgent channel playing a film with too many explosions and acknowledged that he’d deserved this. With Saturday looming and the shit he’d endured today, he more than deserved it.

To getting through another day, he toasted himself. Only got to get through a hundred thousand more.

~*~

Yennefer was used to the monotony of making potions, pouring exact measurements in the exact same order, repeating the same boring lotions and antidotes for ungrateful clients. That didn’t make it any more fun. She wished that maybe, one day, somebody would just ask for something _different_. A defence spell, for example. Or maybe even a few enchantments. She’d done enough acne remedies, love potions and poisons for a lifetime.

Not that her poisons even really worked; they made someone sick at best. She really wasn’t interested in getting in trouble with the LNMD: the London Magical Department, a secret entity only known to those with powers of their own or knowledge they weren’t meant to have. They controlled magic use within the London area. A police force of sorts, except far duller.

They didn’t even wear nice uniforms.

Frankly, it wasn’t worth her time to mess with them. It would mean moving and running and hassle, something she wasn’t quite prepared to deal with. There’d been a time when she would have revelled in the excitement, taking it and laughing through the victory of her freedom.

Not anymore.

Her life for the last 100 years had been the same. Get up, take a client, pretend she was still in control of her life, and sleep. Memories of an ambitious adulthood, when she still thought she had something to give to the world, were just that now: memories. Her dreams had died alongside her dignity as she fell into the gutter of old age and candour. No longer could she pretend she felt the youth portrayed on her face, nor could she bring about the energy to break out of the perpetual cycle of events that trapped her in it.

She’d tricked herself, to an extent, that it wasn’t the case at all. She’d moved to London in 1919 and bought a beautiful penthouse looking over the Thames, although she didn’t find the river as beautiful as she hoped. She’d decorated her apartment to the nines, making the two-bedroom, open plan loft into a museum with the sheer number of antiquated artefacts she showed off. She’d painted almost the entire place red, breaking it up with exposed brick and gold accents and bold rugs over the white-tiled floor. Large French windows took up the far side of the apartment, leading onto a large balcony that was almost impossible to find in London anymore. It was luxurious, more than any one person could ever need, yet she found that it brought her nothing. At best, some of the artefacts gave her some misguided nostalgia of a life she no longer wished to live. The self-indulgent furnishings brought her nothing but mild disinterest.

She tried not to think about it. Instead, she put more gusto into her stirring, speeding up the laborious process of trying to make it into a liquid rather than the sticky, batter-like mixture it seemed determined to stay as. Fucking skin treatments.

It was almost there when her phone went off. Groaning dramatically, she took the spoon out of the mixture and stretched her sore arms before picking up the phone without looking who had called. Whether it was a client or a friend, her response would be the same.

“What?” She deadpanned, managing to sound somewhere between ethereally pissed and completely disinterested.

“Is that any way to treat a friend?”

 _Yes_ , she thought. “Triss!” She exclaimed instead. It wasn’t a lie exactly, she did like Triss (a lot more than most people she knew, in fact) and was fairly content that she’d called but maybe she had amped up the excitement a little bit more than necessary.

“You busy?”

“Not at all,” Yennefer assured.

“Great! I wasn’t calling for much, just wondering whether you wanted to meet up this weekend?”

“I have appointments on Sunday,” Yennefer sighed, “but I’m free on Saturday from midday.”

“Sounds great. How about dinner at Chi’s?” Chi’s was Yennefer’s favourite restaurant. It was down in Camden, tucked in a far corner that looked more like a stack of flats than a restaurant, and sold the best Asian food in London. Or so Yennefer would claim. Triss would say it invited rats inside.

“You hate Chi’s.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. Now, what do you really want? You don’t offer Chi’s for nothing.”

“Okay, _fine_. I have spare tickets to a concert because Phillipa dropped out and I _may_ have been planning to bring your along.” No. _Definitely not_. Yennefer hated concerts, passionately. She hated feeling the pounding beat of your heart as the bass plummeted you outside of reality. She hated feeling like she was losing control. She hated not being able to see the exits, or talk to her friends, or being hit on relentlessly by drunk men, or being eyed up by the curious women.

“No.”

“See! This is why I suggested Chi’s. Come on, I’ll pay and everything. I already have the tickets so all you have to do is stand next to me and sulk. It’ll be great.”

“No, it won’t.”

“That means you’re coming?”

“Yes. But you’re not going to complain about Chi’s once.”

“You can’t ask that of me.”

“I can and I am.”

“Fine,” Triss huffed and Yennefer could just tell she was folding her arms, her phone still tucked between her neck and ear. It was a familiar pose, one that normally made Yennefer laugh. Now, all she could think about was Saturday, and the endless pain she would endure to make Triss happy.

Dammit, she hated having friends.

(That was a lie.)

“I’ll see you on Saturday,” Yennefer sighed impatiently and hung up before Triss could mutter her goodbyes. Yennefer was never any good at phone calls. But, if anything, it kept up her reputation; which, in turn, led to a lot less complaining about her callousness.

Or about how she was a complete arsehole.

Throwing her phone onto the sofa, she fell alongside it, letting herself have a moment of reprieve: just one moment where she didn’t have to hold it together. She felt tears spring in her eyes for reasons she couldn’t begin to comprehend but blinked them away quickly. It reminded her of times long gone, sequestered away in an academy with nothing but a prison cell for company. But she wasn’t like that anymore. She had beauty, power, and most importantly, magic. She wasn’t held captive anymore, she was free.

Freedom wasn’t as good as she’d thought it would be.

Yes, it was far better than the hell she’d suffered to be able to control her powers and be certified by the LNMD, but it wasn’t what she expected. It wasn’t like soaring through the skies, wings spread. It wasn’t like jumping with joy at every twist and turn.

It was rather…boring.

She flipped through channels on the TV, eyes barely on the screen, her skin feeling bare despite the leather jacket she wore. She would never admit it, not in a thousand years, but she was…

She was…

She was lonely, okay? Sitting here alone in her living room, cold even in warmth, wishing that someone would be there to sit with her. Not even to touch. Just to…keep her company. She had her friends, sure. Triss, and Tissaia (if you could really call her a friend), maybe even Istredd (but she didn’t think exes really counted). But she was busy, and tired, and frankly, couldn’t really care less about them.

Triss was nice, but bubbly. And frankly, it grated on Yennefer’s nerves quickly enough. Tissaia was a cruel bitch, even if she was funny (and sometimes showed enough kindness that Yennefer forgave her for being a complete bitch because after all, Yennefer was the same). Istredd was nice, probably one of the first friends she’d ever had, but their past was complicated and made their conversations hard to manoeuvre. And not in the fun way. But in the way that made her feel like she was going to step on a landmine any moment. Their conversations exhausted her more than she liked to admit.

She didn’t trust any of them with her secrets. She didn’t think she could. She trusted herself and only herself and she had done so from the beginning. Or, if she was being more honest with herself, after Istredd. The most gossip anyone had on her was almost a century old, or just rumours. It had been fun for a little bit. Before it became sad.

Everything in her life, she was suddenly realising, was just a little bit sad.

Not that that mattered though. She had her job, and her flat, and her magic. That was all she needed.

Except it wasn’t, was it?

Yennefer had always been ambitious. She’d been the kind of child who had been very sure of her goals, even if they’d taken major shifts over the centuries. She was always fighting for something more, never content with what she had.

She wouldn’t be happy until she had everything. Because maybe that would fill the hole inside her, vacuous and all-consuming, vying for her attention and when she was alone, crippling her until she couldn’t feel anything but the distant buzz of nothingness. Maybe then she’d feel accomplished and not like she’d wasted this infinite life she’d been given.

Immortality was the worst motivator.

There was no rush to get things done. No fears of what she wouldn’t be able to do if she got old. No fear that she couldn’t ever go back and do something again. She was eternally young, destined to have a life of fun and partying and life.

It had been anything but fun. It had barely been a life.

Yet she couldn’t find the will to change that. No, instead she mindlessly watched a TV channel, compacting her maudlin thoughts into a forgotten box in a dusty part of her brain. She didn’t know what she was even watching. Something about…explosions? Yes, there were definitely a lot of explosions. She winced. And blood.

She sighed. Guess this was just the way things were.

~*~

“Jaskier, what the hell are you doing?”

“Um…” Okay, so he was supposed to be in a rehearsal right now. He knew that. Yes, he’d definitely remembered that. Or at least he hoped it looked like that, even if there was definitely a woman beneath him who was getting his manager’s most venomous glare whilst she desperately tried to put her clothes back on. Jaskier, with much more forced calm, slowly buckled his trousers and approached Pricilla, his manager.

“I was on my way.”

“Of course you were,” she deadpanned, glaring at him through black-lined eyes, making the blue look all the more icy, sending shivers down his spine. "Who’s this?”

“Um…” He looked at…oh fuck, he’d forgotten her name. She was beautiful, though, and if he’d had the opportunity he would have wined and dined her like nobody’s business. He could already see them together, little blonde kids between them…

Or, maybe not. She - whatever her name was - was glaring at him with as just a chilly glare as Pricilla. God knew why.

“Goodbye,” she spat, pressing his shirt to his chest with a loud thump before storming out, door slamming behind her.

“Is she going to be a problem?”

“Probably not,” he shrugged. But who knew? He never knew which ones were going to cause trouble. Then again, it was mostly the married ones. Yes, they were _always_ trouble. It wasn’t his fault that they didn’t like their partners!

“We’ll see,” Priscilla said doubtfully, scribbling down a note on her clipboard (why she didn’t just use a phone like any normal person was still beyond him).

Jaskier finally tugged his shirt back over his head, keeping far too many buttons undone as he tucked the white material into his skinny black jeans. He had been feeling the black and white aesthetic today but suddenly he had the feeling it was making him look pale.

Goddamit.

“Are you coming or not?” Jaskier’s head shot up and saw Priscilla waiting in the doorway of his bedroom (it had been weird the first time she’d gotten into his house without a key but he was oddly unworried about it nowadays), looking expectantly at the young musician.

“Yes, yes, just give me a second.”

“I have.” She walked off.

Jaskier sighed, scrubbing his face with his hands. His eyes darted to the clock: 3pm. An hour late. Oh, he was in for it. With the big gig coming up this weekend, there was been plenty of preparation and practice going on this week. And whilst Jaskier found himself wanting to do well on the big day, he imagined any more practice could only do so much.

He was new to the scene but steadily rising in fame, especially in the local area, and this would be his first large (well, comparatively) concert yet. He’d booked a place in Camden and advertised his show a day later in his excitement. And then, to his own delight (as well as his manager’s), tickets had flown out. He wasn’t quite sold out yet but it was a near thing and the bar/live-music venue would be packed, which never failed to put a smile on his face. He’d had his fair share of booing and empty venues and yet here he was, almost selling out tickets to his gig. And, with a few days left to go, it was likely that the last-minute crowd would come through and take the last of the tickets.

That still didn’t mean he was excited about practice.

He loved playing; his guitar was his best friend. And singing was its close companion. But there was something uncreative about practising the same set over and over until his manager was happy with how it sounded. And she never was. Priscilla was a musician herself but had a degree in business management, meaning she was helping him out on the side as she booked her own gigs. Which was fine. Except she was extremely judgemental about his talent. Which- _rude_ , but okay. Yet, it made him reluctant. Songs he’d once loved had turned sour in his mind. Love songs felt empty with no one to sing them to. Dance songs felt useless when he kept getting told they weren’t exciting enough.

His favourite part of the day was now was, depressingly, playing to himself in his bedroom. He’d thought of making a YouTube account, once upon a time. It would make use of his lonely singing sessions but had ended up deciding against it. He did not have the editing talent to even try. Or the patience. Or the effort.

Jaskier should have been delighted. He was on the rise and was delighted with it; fame was almost within smelling distance. Yet, something felt off. No, it wasn’t something. Jaskier knew exactly what it was.

He was a hopeless romantic, and nothing to show for it. No adorable meet-cutes, or successful relationships. Just a string of one-night stands and a few failed dates. He vied for some sort of _relationship_ , a little too desperately at times, but it always seemed to escape him. He did his best, gave everyone he ever met everything he ever had and, well, it still didn’t seem to be enough.

He swallowed and put it out of mind. If he was going to get slandered for his performance, he had to at least start in a good mood as to not spiral into a depression before he could even get halfway through his set.

He rushed after Priscilla, grabbing his guitar case and quick essentials on his way out and got into the black car that Priscilla had owned since she was about 20 (which was, problematically, probably a decade ago) and rumbled ominously whilst she was driving and never seemed to stop. They didn’t speak on the way over, which Jaskier only managed to get through by endless fidgeting and a few awkward coughs. Priscilla was used to it by now and didn’t comment on it. She knew how uncomfortable he found silences, hence why she probably kept it.

They pulled up at the studio at half-past three, where they practised for two hours before Jaskier couldn’t take it anymore (it was a Monday for fuck’s sake) and stormed out of the studio, ignoring Priscilla’s protests, and began the walk to the subway station, where he stood around for far too long before he managed to get on the Northern line before waiting for the bus to Dalston.

For fuck’s sake, he should have just gotten the overground.

By the time he got home, he was exhausted and fed up and wanted nothing more than to call up a friend and have a nice long chat about he was going to salvage his life. Why couldn’t his career be enough? It was for most people. They were successful and hence had lots of money and hence were very, very happy.

Him? He loved his career. Yet it never seemed to be enough.

Miserable, he unpacked his guitar and began plucking on the strings. At first, it seemed a nonsensical pattern of notes yet the song became clear in the end. It was one that, no matter what, could never be ruined by Priscilla’s moaning or his own self-doubts. It was his favourite, through and through. And maybe in ten years, when he was playing it for the millionth time, he would regret saying that. But for now, it brought comfort and familiarity and a nostalgia that nothing else quite could. It warmed his chest, tugged at his heartstrings that felt more like pleasure than it did pain. It quirked his lips in a way he couldn’t resist as his muscles took over and played the familiar notes. He began slowly, forming the notes with a calm serenity that the opening always gave him before his voice began to sing-

_When I was humble,_

_I graced the ride along,_

_With my lover of years_

_And along came this song_

He smiled, picking up the pace, his fingers darting masterfully over the strings. He didn’t sing the rest of the verse, nor did he even sing the next chorus. He was too wrapped up in the notes, letting the floor over him like a tidal wave. Until the last voice, where his soft cadence sang-

_Toss a coin to your lover,_

_For they love you always,_

_For they love you always,_

_Tossed a coin to my lover,_

_For I have loved them always._

It was cheesy and stupid but it had a tune that audiences died for, even if the lyrics showed every bit of the age he wrote them at (a mere fifteen-year-old confused teenager who couldn’t sort out his feelings and thought he owed his partners the world).

The soft feelings the song brought him fleeted quickly, though, and he was left with the usual emptiness of a lonely night. He placed his guitar back in its case, sighing quietly. It wasn’t that bad, he told himself. He could put on MTV and watch music videos of songs that he’d never heard of whilst cooking himself some pasta, which would inevitably be like soup by the time he’d finished cooking it, and drink one too many beers. Ah, the bachelor life.

The best life.

Except, of course, it really wasn’t.

Jaskier went through with his plan anyway, though, because he couldn’t find the effort to do anything else. He ate his soggy pasta with its overly-sweet and badly seasoned tomato sauce in front of his 2005 TV, watching famous musicians revel in their already achieved success.

Bitterness was nothing new yet Jaskier only felt the cycle drag him down. He was an upbeat person by nature. He thought the best in people; an optimist through and through. He had faith that people did the right thing in the end, whether that was misguided or not. Yet here and now, the brunt of his exhaustion seemed to change him, shift him to a snarling monster that couldn’t help but snipe pitifully at men on the TV that would never hear him, a scowl permeating his lips.

How had it come to this?


	2. Bitch, I Ain't One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Sorry this took a while. I wrote the update of my other current work whilst horrifically ill so the update got grossly delayed which pushed this back a bit but the editing was super simple on this so it's actually a bit earlier than I expected it would be.
> 
> Notes:  
> -This makes a reference to the second Witcher game, which I haven't played (I've played one and three) but I just found a YouTube clip that made me laugh and I made it a part of one of the scenes, involving characters I know nothing about.   
> -This starts more Yennefer/Geralt but it will develop into having two relationships (though I'm not quite sure about the endgame yet. Would you guys like all three of them together or two separate couples?) so don't worry!
> 
> Comments and kudos are so appreciated (and thank you to everyone who already has!)
> 
> -fouryearslater

“You can do this, you can do this, you can do this, you can-,”

“Shut up.” Priscilla was filing her nails, every bit the femme fatale that Jaskier did _not_ need right now. Why was every woman he knew _like_ this? Then again, he didn’t know many women. Excluding the ones he’d slept with. Although, there _was_ that one time with Priscilla-

They both tried to forget about that.

Anyway.

“You can do this,” he continued to repeat, albeit silently, mouthing it into the dressing room mirror, a gaudy thing with tacky bulbs that still made him feel like a rockstar. Guess that was the point.

“I can see you,” Priscilla snapped, breaking Jaskier out of his trance _yet again_.

“What has you in such a mood today?”

“Nothing.”

“No, there’s something. What’s the stick up your arse?”

“Don’t say that,” she begged, wrinkling her nose as she lay her nail file down on the dressing table, her feet resting beside them.

“Well, I already have. Now, what’s up?”

“It’s nothing.”

“As we’ve established already, it’s not nothing. So cough up.”

“No.”

“Come on. Just cough it up.”

“I said no.”

“Come _on_.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“You’re going to tell me.”

“No.”

“You’re not going to tell me.”

“For fuck’s sake, Jaskier, I said it’s nothing!” Priscilla suddenly screamed, slamming her feet onto the floor and stalking out the room, slamming the door with a resounding bang behind her. Jaskier was left reeling, unable to fathom how he’d stepped over the line so easily. She didn’t even seem on edge before. Just bored, or irritated. Nothing that indicated she’d go on a rage for-

Never mind.

This was his day. She wasn’t going to ruin it. Especially if she wouldn’t even let him help her. _So much for being friends_. He sighed, running a hand through his hair and trying to make it sit in a natural position whilst also being stage worthy. Not happening today, apparently. No, his hair seemed to like the middle parting he’d woken up with. Which, frankly, made him look like a public schoolboy who was ready to shoot some pheasants on his father’s estate. And then boast about it. And post about it. Endlessly. Forever.

Fucking Jeremy.

Jaskier finally gave up with a heaving sigh, wiping his hands down his face. _It’s going to be fine_ , he told himself. He was the kind of person that worried only to the extreme, feeding the anxiety with more anxiety until he could barely take a step for fear he’d take it wrong. And it only ever hit at the worst of times.

He decided to get out of the changing rooms and do another sweep of the venue. It made him more comfortable to know what the stage was going to look like before he was on it. To know how many people might fit. He always overthought these things, wondering if the crowd was thinner than he’d like. _You’ve sold out tonight_ , he reminded himself with a smile. _It’s going to be fine_.

The walk around the venue wasted five minutes or less. It was only medium-sized, with a flat stage opposite a light rig with a wide-open space in between and a bar to one side. Everything was painted black, except for his curtain at the back, which had a large yellow dandelion with the white print of his name over it. He smiled at it. The thing had cost him a fortune but it was worth it, seeing it here, hanging up before he performed in a sold-out show.

Oh, how far he’d come.

The positivity was good for his nerves, albeit not for his restlessness. He paced back and forth, glancing at himself in the mirror as he repetitively changed his hair. He kept opening his mouth to speak, only to remember Priscilla had stormed off in a huff, leaving him with nothing but his own mind to deal with.

But it would be fine. _It was going to be fine_.

~*~

Okay, fine, Chi’s was a shithole, but she loved it. Triss looked less impressed, picking at the plate with unveiled disgust. And, okay, the meal didn’t look particularly appetising but she would bet on it tasting glorious. “Stop pretending you hate it.”

“Look at it!” Triss argued, dragging her spoon through the thick paste of her curry.

“Just _eat_ it.” Reluctantly, Triss followed orders and slurped the sickeningly thick sauce into her mouth. She hummed. “It’s okay.”

“You love it.” Triss glared at her but didn’t refute, taking a slightly larger scoop, even adding a floating bit of chicken to the mix. “Is this cooked?” She asked, examining the slightly pink chicken. “ _Yes_ , now just eat. You promised you wouldn’t complain.”

“I’m not,” she said with a barely concealed glare. “The things I do for you.”

“I’m doing this for _you_. I’m the one that has to suffer through that insufferable concert.”

“I’m eating _here_ , so don’t start complaining. Maybe you won’t hate it as much as you think you will.”

“I doubt it.”

“Oh, come on, Yen. The act is cute, you’ll love him. And he has a decent voice. _And_ it’s mostly acoustic.”

That softened Yennefer’s distaste enough that she stopped scowling, although she couldn’t quite reach a smile. “Well, I’m going now anyway, so let’s not dwell on it.”

Triss replied with a cryptic smile, making Yennefer far too uncomfortable for her liking. “Sure thing. Hey, did I tell you about Philippa?”

“No?”

“Oh, you’re going to love this. So, you know how I made you come to this. Basically, Philippa backed out but she wouldn’t tell me why. Until yesterday. She called me up, in absolute hysterics, and told her Cynthia had finally asked her out and they were going on a date today.”

“They’re what?!”

“Don’t act so surprised.”

“I’m not. But I had a bet going.”

“With who?”

“Myself,” Yennefer admitted, not even halfway ashamed. “I said it’d be another few months _at least_. They’re both hopeless. Cynthia especially. Are you sure it was her? I was sure it would be Philippa.”

“I think she’s as surprised as we are. Philippa had always seemed to be…more in charge.”

Yennefer concealed a laugh behind a cough. “Yes, she’s definitely _in charge_. But that’s nice for them, even if it took them so long.”

“Really?”

“What?”

“You really think it’s nice?” Triss knew her too well.

“Fine, I hate it, but only because Philippa is awful and Cynthia is annoying. Together they’ll be insufferable.”

“They’re your friends.”

“ _Exactly_.” Triss laughed, although in a way that suggested either discomfort or self-consciousness. Yennefer didn’t dwell on it.

They chatted mindlessly over the next hour, scraping the food off the bottom of their dishes (which Yennefer didn’t fail to rub in Triss’ face), and paid the bill in good time. Or so they thought. Triss checked her phone before frantically bustling them out of the restaurant, pacing down the streets of Camden with unmatched force.

“For God’s sake, do you have to walk so fast?”

“We’re going to be late.”

“That’s not my fault!”

“It is if you keep walking so slow.” Yennefer huffed and hurried after Triss, regretting her heeled boots with vigorous passion. They’d looked good earlier, but that wasn’t worth running across Camden in them.

They reached the venue about fifteen minutes into the starter act, some local teenagers who were looking for some spotlight, and made their way to the bar, pushing past hordes of teenagers and twenty-somethings alike. God, Yennefer felt _old_.

“What do you want?” Triss shouted over the music.

“The strongest thing they have!” Yennefer replied sardonically, leaning gracefully against the bar-top, grimacing as the fur around her cuffs caught in the sticky concoction on top. Shuddering, she slowly took a few steps, feeling her feet peel off the floors. Seemingly, this place was against her from the start.

Triss returned with a carafe of wine to share (not strong enough, Yennefer wanted to say), pouring it into two tacky glasses. “Stop scowling.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“This place is disgusting.”

“And so is Chi’s, so get over it.” Yennefer scowled (more) and took a gulp of her wine.

“So, who’s the act? And I don’t mean his name. What am I supposed to be suffering through?”

“He’s sort of acoustic indie but maybe a bit of pop rolled in there. He’s pretty varying. But it’s mostly just him and his guitar.”

“He got a good voice?”

“It’s okay.”

“Very complimentary.”

“I just like his songs! Philippa was the super fan not me. But I’m not going to waste tickets. And it’s nice to get out nowadays.”

“Busy?”

“Super. Ends up working for a company is worse than freelance.”

“Then quit.”

“I’m on a _contract_ , Yennefer.”

“Quit anyway.”

“You’re going to be the death of me,” Triss laughed, taking a sip of her own wine. “Not everyone can just do what they want.”

“Sure they can, they just don’t have the guts to.”

“You just can because you’re old and bitter.” Triss was probably the only person on this planet that could just about get away with that comment. Still, Yennefer shot her a violent glare and raised a dark eyebrow at her. Triss shuddered. Her job was complete.

She turned to the stage, cringing at the bright yellow Dandelion that seemed to drown out the stage. But at least it was better than looking at the crowd. She could almost feel herself gaining wrinkles before their very eyes. They were all so young, so full of vitality and life and youth. She may have looked twenty, but she couldn’t be further from it, no matter how hard she tried otherwise.

She downed the rest of her glass. It was going to be a long night.

~*~

Ciri’s friends arrived at the house an hour before they were supposed to leave, meaning Geralt was left in charge of a gang of rambunctious little people without a modicum of preparation or will power. Frankly, he’d been saving that up for the concert but now that he had a bunch of thirteen-year-olds screaming in his living room, it was becoming clear that his allocation of will power was going to be spread a little thinner than anticipated.

He’d deemed to ignore them for the most part, poking his head into the room at random intervals to check they weren’t trashing everything (that wasn’t already trashed), satisfied to see that - apart from the violently loud noise - they were being rather tame.

There were about seven of them, although Geralt hadn’t deemed it important to count, including Ciri. They were all girls, apart from Dara, who seemed content to sit on the side-lines whilst everyone else talked. The other girls were mostly what Geralt liked to define as twats. He may not have been around them for long but it was clear from everything from the way they dressed to the way they sneered at Dara like he was a freak of nature that they were just awful. But, most thirteen-year-olds were, weren’t they.

Ciri went to an all-girls school on the edge of Croydon but had met Dara at Judo when she was about five and they’d stuck by each other’s sides ever since. But, apparently, her new ‘clique’ wasn’t as accepting of her life-long friendship because he was a _nerd-boy_ , and shy at that.

“Geralt, we’re ready,” Ciri finally stated, just her head visible as she leant through the doorway into the kitchen.

“Let's go then.” _The quicker we get this over with, the better._ He herded Ciri and her friends into a crowd and down the teeming streets of London with an ease borne from effortlessly imposing terror on others through his looks alone. They got the tube, half of them standing due to the tube’s rush of Saturday-night outings, but somehow managed to stay together. Although, awfully, Geralt had had to pull Dara back into the crowd on multiple occasions. The other girls didn’t seem to want to do it themselves. Or Ciri, for the matter.

Geralt squinted, watching as Ciri led the group out of Camden tube station and into the main high-street of shops, though most of them were now tacky tourist stalls. There was something off about her whole demeanour. She looked different, he realised too. Ciri had always been one for a jeans-hoodie combo with her hair tied back into a frazzled plait, paint smudges covering her sleeves and mud on her cuffs. Today, she’d pulled her hair back into a painfully tight ponytail and had some sort of painfully bright blue gunk on her eyelids and was wearing a mini skirt about ten sizes too small.

Geralt regretted having not looked at her outfit earlier. She wouldn’t have even been let out the house.

But, well, it was too late to turn back. So all he could do was try to catch her eye as he pushed his way to the front of the group with Dara, pushing through the crowds and clearing a path for the trail of teenagers behind him.

They made it to the venue with too much time to spare. Far too much. The starter act was only just finishing setting up, which meant he had to suffer through another hour of terrible music. He’d already lost Ciri and her friends to the slowly growing crowd, which left him to sulk alone at the back of the venue, where there was a line of three tables with high stools. He took one before anyone else could, glad that there was at least one positive to coming so early, before he realised he couldn’t get a drink without deserting his claimed table.

Never mind, he wasn’t much a drinker on nights like these anyway. Inebriation was a great pastime until you had seven or so teenagers expecting you to get them home. Wait…

He didn’t know where they lived.

Where they _staying over?_

Shit. Geralt hadn’t thought this through. He didn’t have a drink. He was at a concert for teenagers. He was alone. And he possibly had to suffer until well into tomorrow morning before he could finally be alone again.

It was loud in here, he noted, wishing he’d brought his earphones. But, well, no one brought earphones to a concert. Even he wasn’t that weird. For a moment, he wished he’d brought Roach, even if the damned cat would have run at the first possibility of freedom. Something to bring him some iota of joy. Someone to talk to that wasn’t either thirteen or a stranger.

He sighed.

He suffered through the next hour of bad singing and awkward dancing sulking by himself. It wasn’t so bad, he had convinced himself about ten minutes in. But it was definitely boring. His phone only had so much entertainment on it, namely a few work emails he could reply to and a single text message from _EE_. Lovely, he thought, the only texts I get now are from my mobile operator.

He finally found his way onto Facebook, but he only followed estranged family members that he wished he wasn’t still in contact with, souring his mood further. All Ciri’s anyway, none of them his (they’d all died a long time ago, and good riddance). He only kept them as friends because they still sent Ciri gifts on her birthday and it felt rude to completely cut them off. He did the minimal he could to stay in touch, if only so Ciri could still have some contact with her roots.

So she could still have some link to her mother.

That wasted another ten minutes and the starter act were finally packing up, leaving only the empty stage and the outrageously bright ‘Dandelion’ curtain. He was sure it wasn’t actually that bright; it must have been a spotlight or something. Because it certainly was…yellow. Almost…piss-coloured.

It was yet another half an hour after that until the stage was set up for a real, a microphone put in place by a bored-looking technician. Geralt was only interrupted by his mindless scrolling of a newly set up Instagram (though he’d spent most of his time trying to find Ciri before he’d given up and watched fitness videos), when cheers erupted from the crowds, following by a thin man with dangly brown hair jiving onto stage, guitar strung over his back. Geralt watched in amusement as the teenagers went wild, Dandelion’s dazzling smile beaming out at them.

“I won’t bore you with my endless talking, so here’s the first song. It’s called ‘Her Sweet Kiss’. Cheers erupted even louder (how was that even possible), and Dandelion began strumming softly on his guitar, lilting voice joining soon after. It wasn’t Geralt’s cup of tea but it was enough not to be scathing, so he allowed himself to listen as he watched more videos of how best to do a push up (though he already knew perfectly well that his technique was flawless).

It must have been on the third song or so that someone finally approached his table. Or, well, not approached, per se. More like, sat next to, probably unwillingly. “Is this seat free?” the woman asked curtly, already halfway to sitting down. In the darkness, Geralt could hardly make her out but his eyes saw better than most; he found the dull glimmer of black hair and dark red lipstick that stood out so starkly from her tanned skin. He couldn’t look away. She was…

Fuck.

He hummed, motioning to the seat, practically begging for her to sit on it (although he was fairly certain none of it showed, he’d trained that out of himself a long time ago). She did, sighing quietly as she finally got off her feet, a vodka tonic in her hand.

They sat in the companionable silence that could only be achieved between strangers when Geralt finally tried to reach across the gap, as awkward and stilted as he always was when caught off guard. And how off guard he was. As the lights moved, illuminating her face, he found himself transfixed.

Warlock, he noticed, when he caught the purple shine of her irises. It made sense; it was in every movement, gesture and twitch. There was a fluidity to magic users, ever so different from the bluntness of his own enigmatic mutations. Whilst he was brash, she was soft; yet they were both as deadly as each other. He could see that. He’d been trained to see things like that. To perceive a threat when it was there.

“Do you like the music?” Well, way to sound awkward. He kept a straight face, shutting down his brain with a quick _what else were you supposed to say_ and caught her eye. A small smile flickered on her lips, so slight he might have tricked himself into it if only he didn’t have such inherent trust in his instincts.

“No. Not at all.” He raised an eyebrow in question, simply glad to have gotten a conversation going, no matter how blunt it was. If anything, that was perfect. “I’m here for a friend. You? You do not seem like the kind of person to listen to,” she peered up at the stage, “ _Dandelion_.”

“Daughter,” he answered frankly, hands twitching for a drink. For fuck’s sake, wasn’t there anything this concert could do for him. Then again, it was giving him this. “I’m chaperoning,” he elaborated unnecessarily, if only to fill the silence.

“Ah. Her mother not want to?”

“Dead.”

“Makes sense. What kind of man suffers through this otherwise?” The diversion of topic was as painful as it was perfect. This woman didn’t hold back, nor did she push. She didn’t say sorry, or any of that awful stuff. Not that Geralt would particularly care. Ciri’s mother was as much a stranger to him as she was to Ciri. Her death meant little more than guilt for his child.

“I was brought in last minute,” he complained.

“Telling. Your daughter a minx?”

“She’s thirteen.”

“Oh, that makes even more sense.” Geralt smiled, unable to hold it back. When their eyes met again, he was surprised to see this woman smiling back, vodka and tonic set steadfastly on the table as a statement. “What’s your name?” She asked through curled lips.

“Geralt. What about you?”

“Yennefer. But most people call me Yen.” They didn’t, but that was the fun of it.

“Yennefer,” he repeated, “nice name. Never heard it before.”

“Nor have I heard Geralt. Is it foreign?”

“Irish. Yours?”

“Polish, I think. My mother had family there. Never met them, though.”

“Me neither. I’ve never even been to Ireland.”

“Really? I went once.” She turned to him with a wicked smirk. “It was _cold_.”

“Descriptive,” he taunted.

“Well, it was also rainy, dark and rather bleak if you want more.”

“When did you go?”

“December.”

“So as expected.”

“Possibly so.” Silence descended but it was neither awkward nor out of place. In the turbulent atmosphere of a concert’s crowd, it was easy to drift in and out of speech, listening to the music that was to neither of their tastes in the interval. Topics drifted in and out of existence. He asked Yennefer what she did and got the answer he expected; warlock for hire as and when she was needed. She asked him the same in return and for some reason, he felt a little ashamed to give tell her such a mundane profession.

He’d had much more interesting ones in the past. This was a rather new venture. And whilst it was relaxing and something he genuinely quite enjoyed, he couldn’t quite say he was proud of it. She didn’t seem fazed, though, even if she didn’t ask for any specifics. That was fair enough, Geralt thought. He didn’t really want to talk about it either.

He talked about Ciri, as much as he could talk about anyone (which was minimal) and he smiled like he smiled with no one else. The connection between them was instant and whilst it wasn’t foolproof, it was enough to bolster his confidence. Yet, somehow, he couldn’t quite take the leap and ask to meet again. No, something held him back. Maybe it was the fear of socialising, or effort. Maybe it was the memories of relationships long ago that had both drained him and bored him in equal measure.

He just couldn’t.

Instead, he talked. And talked. And said more in three hours than he’d said in the entirety of his life. And she talked back. She could be as blunt as him, yet as carefully manipulative as any educated woman. She was as sinister as she was kind, which set Geralt alight as much as it did comfort him.

Geralt had walls around himself; ones that meant he didn’t show emotion, giving in to the perception of friends and strangers alike, reinstating his reputation with every action. But one smile and Yennefer had crumbled them, tore them down with a flick of her wrist, as strong as the magic she possessed in her veins.

He looked at her and saw something he’d never seen before.

 _Fuck_.

~*~

Yennefer was floored. No, more than that, she was in a fucking hole. How had this happened? How had she been dragged to a concert (one her least favourite events that came under the subheading ‘fun’) and actually enjoyed it, if only because of one brazen, white-haired man who made her laugh more than even her closest of friends? And sure, it wasn’t a cackle by any means, but these gentle, lulling laughs were like a wash of fresh air over the previously polluted humour she’d been holding on to.

This was stupid.

They’d met for all of a few hours and talked for even less. Yet she was transfixed. Their conversation was as exciting as it was familiar. Each twist and turn unforgivably easy and exciting. Geralt was quiet, a little grumpy, but interesting and intriguing and held a sense of overt mystery that seemed both contradictory and enchanting.

Perhaps she was romanticising it. Really, he was just a guy, a pretty nice guy, who she was having a good conversation with. But it happened so rarely, especially in a life as long as hers. She could count on almost one hand the number of people she’d had a good conversation with in the last half a century. Youth does brilliance for learning but after that, no matter how much there is to learn, it just begins to feel like more and more people are just…well, _dumb_.

In a discussion with others of her very long-lasting kind, she found she was quite heavily outweighed in her ideology. Triss always argued that the longer she lived, the more interesting she found people. But Triss was still fairly young, at least in comparison to Yennefer, and endlessly optimistic (or, well, not particularly but in comparison to Yennefer, she was a fucking daisy). Phillipa was as much a pessimist as Yennefer but still found people endlessly exciting. And Tissaia revelled in teaching, dull conversations were just another thing on her to do list to fix.

She pushed her thoughts aside. She was in the here and now; it was best not to over-analyse things. Instead, she smiled quietly under the dancing lights and watched Geralt turn to the stage, watching Dandelion with detached interest but with more intensity than he’d probably let on.

She didn’t watch the stage. She examined him instead, everything from the shiny white hair to the wide shoulders, even the ratty jeans he’d clearly worn one too many times. He was a mismatch: entirely composed but run down to the bone. But, most importantly, she noted the shine of his amber eyes. Cat eyes. Gleaming in the darkness. A mutated gene: something from a summoning? She didn’t dare ask. Even Yennefer had limits to how uncouth she could be, and that would be surpassing most of them.

But she could ask him later. If they grew closer, if they saw each other again, maybe if she got his number. But he was burdened by her own misgivings, a poisonously old insecurity that stopped her from acting on anything. She’d long since learnt that the one foolproof way of avoiding rejection was to give no one anything to reject. It sewed her lips shut, preventing her from opening-

“Can I have your number?”

Oh shit. _Oh shit_. Defences down! Intruder alert. Idiocy has officially reached her brain. How did that even come out of her mouth? How had the stitches unravelled so easily, chaotically strewn around her feet?

Yennefer fought to be as composed as any human could be, often making her robotically un-empathetic at times, but this was breaking it down; you couldn’t be composed when you were caught so off guard by your own mouth-

“Yeah,” Geralt breathed, unlocking his phone and handing it over to her, the page open on his number. She breathed in deeply, fighting for composure as she calmly inputted his number into her phone, tampering down a violent smile. It probably ended up as a grimace. At this point, she was beyond hope.

She handed his phone back, sending him a quick _it’s Yennefer_ text to confirm her own number, turning to the stage to skip past the awkward interaction that was going to follow.

The awkward soon faded, though, and they talked like nothing happened, although they were both aware of the undercurrent of excitement at the prospect of seeing each other again. It was almost humorous. To the outside, they surely looked like a stoic pair practically making a business transaction but Yennefer was lit up inside, intrigued by this man both similar and distinctly different to herself.

The concert finished too soon. Geralt stood up, tucking his chair under the stool, looking like he was trying to delay as much time as possible before he left. “I have to go find Ciri.”

“Of course. I’ll…message you.”

“That sounds great,” he practically whispered, disappearing into the crowd, leaving Yennefer to curse both her unending stupidity and amazing luck. She knew she was beautiful, good looking and intelligent, but she couldn’t quite get over the fact that he seemed to find her interesting, and funny, and _kind_. It was everything she overtly wasn’t, yet he seemed to find it somewhere. He laughed at her bad jokes and petty word play. He smiled when she crudely complimented his hair. He listened intently no matter what she was spewing.

She didn’t move, watching the technicians pack up the stage with a dopey smile, until Triss finally found her. “You look…happy?” It probably wasn’t brilliant that Triss sounded so surprised by that.

“I’m not happy. That was awful.”

“So why are you smiling?”

She pushed her lips into a straight line. “I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Oh _shut up_.” And that was the end of that.

~*~

Jaskier was practically buzzing as he played his last song, skipping over the stage with an air of impregnable happiness. The audience was screaming, his set had been almost flawless and he’d definitely got some attention. After tonight, he was definitely going places. Or, at least, he hoped so.

With unbridled pride, he asked for a selfie with his adoring fans before he played his last and final chorus, unable to hide his shock at the frantic pushing and waving happening behind him. Really, his ego didn’t need the boost. But it was nice to have it anyway.

He belted his final words before taking his bow, escaping the stage before he decided to stay on it forever, breathing in deep as he fought for his composure back. Yet it never seemed to come. He was shaking, smiling and looking like an all-round madman. But he didn’t care. This was his show and it had gone _well_. No one could take that away from him.

He looked around, ready to pull his manager into his arms.

But Priscilla wasn’t there.

She was always there at the end of his concerts, clapping (if reluctantly) along with everyone else. Maybe a little smile on her lips, somewhere between adoring and bitter.

She wasn’t there.

Oh…well…he’d celebrate with someone else then! It was her fault she was being a moody cow today; he could find another friend. Opening his phone, his dazed smile only a little tampered, he scrolled through a long list of contacts.

No.

No.

Probably not him.

 _Definitely_ not her.

No.

Nope.

Oh god no.

Oh shit.

He got the end of the list, his heart dropping into his stomach. Wasn’t there a single person he could celebrate with? Contact? A friend to push him through the afterglow, have a few drinks with without being offered a contract, incessantly hit on (well, okay, that wasn’t all that bad) or taken advantage of.

Did he have _any_ real friends?

Apparently not. So go him! His smile faded to nothing, the buzz of adrenaline suddenly keeping him antsy. Stuck in the dazzlingly sharp electric field of paranoia, his eyes darted about, making sure he was alone. He grit his teeth with bitter resentment and packed up his guitar, stalking outside to sulk.

The alley outside of the bar was as dingy as it was rotten. Bricks grasped at the walls desperately, illuminated only by the flood of yellow light coming from the stage door. It wasn’t the official exit, no. If he was going to sign autographs, he’d do it out front. But not yet. He just needed to…breathe. Breathe in the smell of rotten garbage, rats and sick.

Someone had definitely puked out here.

He held his breath for a second before letting it out with a pitying half sob. God, he was letting this get to him. Maybe it was the final straw, maybe the first, but he was finally feeling the brutal punches of loneliness in its true form. This wasn’t some nostalgic longing, or night-long sadness, this was the heart-wrenching fear of the future. Was he always going to be alone? He was only 25. That was a long time left to live. Yet…if you didn’t have friends at 25, when did you? He was supposed to be amidst the parties and drugs and fun, laughing and joking and loving life. Instead, he was left to enjoy the after-effects of a brilliant night by himself, standing in a rotting alleyway with no one-

There was a man in the shadows.

Shrouded by the edges of the creeping light, he was hunched, perfectly still, almost like he wasn’t even there. Jaskier could only make him out through squinted eyes, leaning forward with a little too much curiosity. Moments like these could always be song ideas, an intriguing activity to put down into lyrical genius.

“Oi,” he finally shouted at the shadows, “what you lurking around for?” He realised his mistake as soon as he said it. The man was fast, like a dangerous predator as he pushed himself off the wall, turning to Jaskier. He was large, with looming shoulders and a generally imposing figure. Taller than Jaskier by…well, by a lot.

Oh fuck, he was probably a mugger, wasn’t he? He was just _waiting_ for Jaskier to come closer.

Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck-

“You Dandelion?” Oh fuck he was going to be…oh god, the man was _hot_. With scraped back white hair, pulled into a bun, and boring yet tight clothes, his eyes shone in the darkness, a gleaming gold that illuminated thin, cat-like pupils. If Jaskier was getting mugged, he might just have done it willingly.

“Um…yeah? I mean, yes. But most people call me Jaskier.”

“Jaskier. That Polish?”

“Yeah. Translates to Dandelion. Hence…well,” he motioned to himself, “Dandelion.” The man nodded but didn’t do much more, taking a place on the wall again but facing away from Jaskier, although he was much closer now. Pushing back maudlin thoughts, Jaskier fixated on him, curiosity getting the best of him.

“So, what are you doing in this… _beautiful_ alleyway?” It teased a smile out of the man. That was enough to tease a smile of Jaskier’s own.

“Waiting for someone.”

“Huh, that’s great. Yeah. You…you like the show?”

“It was alright.”

Jaskier gasped dramatically. “You take that back. That was _amazing_.”

“Musicians,” the man scoffed, “you always have such egos.”

“Only the best.” Another smile. Jaskier was doing well.

“So…who are you waiting for?” The man turned, raising an eyebrow at Jaskier with a look that just screamed _you’re really gonna keep asking me questions?_ “Not that you need to tell me. I guess. But it would be nice if you did?”

Another smile. Score! “I’ll tell you another time.” ( _Fuck_ , Geralt didn’t know what he was doing. _What was he doing?_ )

“Huh, another time? You want to go on a date, big man?” The ability to lay it on thick boosted Jaskier’s confidence up to a hundred. _This_ he knew what to do.

“Sorry, straight.”

Jaskier eyed him up. “Su~re.” Well, that definitely got him a look. “What? You’re the one who brought it up! But you sure? I certainly wouldn’t disappoint.”

“Yeah, no.”

Well, that was that. At least he tried.

It should have been awkward after that, a lingering silence that oppressed on the calm atmosphere they’d both clearly come here to capture. Yet it wasn’t. The silence felt as calm as being alone did. And maybe that said measures about Jaskier’s loneliness, or just something magical about Geralt’s presence, but it was comforting all the same.

Slowly, it got broken. Multiple times. Always by Jaskier, but Geralt didn’t seem to bristle at his endless chatter (that much, anyway). So he kept talking, and talking, and talking until-

“I have to go.” It was brazen, yet didn’t feel rude, even if it did cut Jaskier off mid-sentence. There was something about Geralt that meant Jaskier just _allowed it_. Which was 100% awful but just as unstoppable.

“Hey, how about your number?” Even if there wasn’t a date, he’d certainly like a friend.

“Maybe another time.”

Oh.

Geralt stalked away, claimed again by the shadows, leaving Jaskier in his own, guitar suddenly digging into his back. Guess he’d just go back to being Billy-No-Mates again.

Well, guess it wasn’t a surprise.


End file.
